Thursday, November 11, 2010

What the schools rebelling against National Standards actually signed up to

The Herald is reporting that a third of schools that have signed up as having no confidence in National Standards are in fact going to implement National Standards after the Ministry rang the school to find out if they were or not.

It is important to be clear that each principal of every rebel school supports the board’s actions. But boards did not sign up to boycott the National Standards. They did not sign up to report to parents without using National Standards. They did not even sign up to point blank defer sending achievement targets relating to National Standards to the Ministry. They did not sign up on instructions or pressure from the NZEI or any other union.

Here’s what they signed up to. They signed up to an expression of no confidence in the standards as well as ticking one (or both) of two options. If option one is ticked, that incorporates option two anyway.

1. Urging the Minister to engage in rebuilding the standards in partnership with the sector and to work together for an outcome widely endorsed by the sector, with the action of deferring setting student achievement targets against National standards in 2011

That’s not a boycott. While it is an expression of no confidence, these schools have not agreed to stop reporting to parents using National Standards. If the Minister appropriately engages with the sector, no schools will defer setting 2011 achievement targets against National Standards.

2. Urging the Minister to engage in rebuilding the Standards in partnership with the sector and to work together for an outcome widely endorsed by the sector

A school could completely comply with National standards and sign this section.

Its unclear how many schools ticked option two only, how many ticked option one only, or how many ticked both options. Nobody seems to know.

What is interesting is that there is little guidance as to what the Ministry of Education requires in terms of how 2011 achievement targets are to be reported when schools forward their charters to the ministry early next year. What happens if schools report what appears to be National Standards data, but really the data is actually the assessment data, not that data aligned with the National Standards. What if the assessment alignment to National Standards is just a data transfer – in other words a school decides to grade the same proportion of people who meet the assessments as also meeting the National Standards. Who is to know?